“If someone cast a spell, why not lightning or fire? Or just release the skeletons? Maybe Boosey’s hair is falling out because of whatever is in his waterskin.“
Nenne shakes her head at the fighter. "If this were the first time this happened, I might be inclined to accept that possibility. Yet is has happened to our storyteller long before we arrived at Omu. And he is not the only one to have a lock of hair stolen from him."
Glimbul looks to Nenne with confusion, “This happens to you all often? Are you all cursed or something? That does not sounds like a good thing you know.”
"It happened to the storyteller quite some time ago, when we were traversing the jungles of Chult," Nenne confirms soberly. "He had nightmares afterward. I broke whatever magic was done to him our first night in this wretched city."
"I wish I understood how the caster selects his victims," the cleric sighs, "and what precisely he does to them. The nightmares seem to me a symptom rather than the spell's aim. As for why the culprit is here...the scent of festering wounds and rotted leather accompanied the chanting I heard. I would rather not speculate what that means until I have more data."
She looks up at the ceiling and scowls slightly. "If only my communications were not stifled...there is much I wish to ask." A sudden, affectionate smirk plays at her lips. "Then again," she adds to herself, "he is rarely forthcoming in his replies."
She looks back at Boosey. "Try not to fret too much, my friend. We will endure this together."
Boosey slowly puts his hand up to his head, feeling the spot where the hair is missing. A feeling of dread descends over him as the vivid nightmares he suffered in the jungle come back in a garbled rush.
“It...it seems similar to the last time, though whether it is the same I...I can’t be certain,” he stammers. He toys with his water skin a while. “What if it’s something to do with that Valindra, was that her name. The Lich.... other Lich,” and he rubs his face. “Oh I don’t know, but if we heard someone casting a spell, there has to be something....someone in here with us.”
He looks around somewhat wild eyed, then takes a drink from his water skin.
As Boosey sips from the water skin, his face screws up in an odd way. The gnome puts a hand on his stomach and he looks as if he might hurl. The sensation passes, and he looks otherwise okay. He opens his mouth to speak, but the words do not vocalize. He tries a few more phrases and words that bear no volume either. It seems that the bard has lost his voice.
The gnome tries to speak, but each attempt it’s like the sound is cut off before it reaches his mouth. After several attempts he gives up and gives a resigned sigh, before pulling out his flute. He tries a few experimental notes, and is relieved to find that it still plays, sweet and clear.
A thought occurs to him and he tries to sing a few notes, running up a scale and repeatedly singing the word “doh” several times.
To the tune of “minstrel boy”, the only one he can think of as his mind is in a state of panic he sings,
The cleric does her very best not to laugh and make the bard feel worse, settling instead for a half-pitying, half-wincing smile at his lyrics.
"As long as you can still spellcast in this fashion, it seems we will simply enjoy the fruit of your craft until you regain your speaking ability," she says as kindly as she can. "Protecting you all has taken quite a toll on me this day. I must ration what is left of my energy."
She touches the torn water skin and spends a minute restoring it.
The party talks it over for a while about where to go next. It's clear that each of the five heroes has their own idea of what is important, but the third floor comes up the most, so the party descends there. The two hulking creatures still lie ruined against and hanging from the balcony. The tomb is eerily quiet, save the rumbling from somewhere down below.
“We should see what‘s in this corridor. If some helpers or magic restore the traps and meatbags we have to hurry and not waste the opportunity. Unless we want to fight these guys again.“ Allister point towards the bodies of the behemoths.
Listening at the double doors at the far end of the hall provides no indicator as to what might be behind them; it is deadly silent. The narrow hallway precedes a room sporting what appears to be another sarcophagus. A four-columned portico juts out from the far wall, beneath which a stone sarcophagus rests in a wall recess. Four ceramic frog masks hang in niches around the sarcophagus. Beneath the masks, humanoid bones are strewn across the floor. To the east, a large carving of a tentacled frog-monster squats above a shrine. Offerings lie on a shelf before it. Four rectangular frescoes adorn the adjacent walls.
As the party passes the two creatures hanging over the edge of the balcony he points at the chain that still connected the two and makes a cutting motion with his fingers. He nods at Allister suggestion to look down the corridor and follows him in. Suddenly his voice sings out in a baritone, and as he performs he finds his arms making dramatic gestures in time with the music. "Weeeeeee, should check for traps in this passageway....the fight, the fight there were none found.......but to the end I did not go, just level with this passage north." As they enter the room with the sarcophagus, he calls out in a high staccato exclamation, rolling the 'R'' "Froghemoth?"
Boosey creeps into the room in search of any traps. The wall shrine's trinkets are a 6-inch-tall stone statuette of a froghemoth, which has an inscription on its base in Old Omuan, a copper bowl containing rat bones, four dead cockroaches, a green wax candle with a salvageable wick, and five loose gold coins. The bard finds no obvious traps after a lengthy search and stands to investigate the frescoes.
The first fresco depicts a frog-like behemoth using its tentacles to help the Omuan people knock down a mighty statue. In the foreground, an old woman wearing a frog mask tosses five coins from her hand as though sowing seeds.
The second fresco depicts a frog-like behemoth wrapping its tentacles around a giant crocodile as Omuan hunters stab the crocodile with their spears. In the foreground, an old man wearing a frog mask holds a bug up to his open mouth.
The third fresco depicts a frog-like behemoth with four Omuan hunters riding on its back finding a small boy in the jungle. The hunters seem elated. In the foreground, a young woman wearing a frog mask holds a knife in one hand and a headless chicken in the other.
The fourth and last fresco depicts a frog-like behemoth wallowing in a shallow pool as Omuans offer it urns of food and treasure as tribute. Cracks in the fresco obscure the head of the human figure and much of the other details in the foreground, but you can see that it grasps a candle base.
Boosey peers at the small statuette for a while and his face takes on a distant look for a moment. Eventually he smiles and nods. Pulling out the journal he carries, he finds a blank page and begins to write. The inscription on the statuette reads, "Give thanks to me as others have done since the dawn of time". At the end he simply writes Kubazan. He passes the translation round the party, gesturing at them to read it.
“He was actively involved in people‘s life and they paid tribute. Do we have to reenact those scenes or do we make our own offering? I don’t see a way to come up with a chicken or a boy.“
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“If someone cast a spell, why not lightning or fire? Or just release the skeletons? Maybe Boosey’s hair is falling out because of whatever is in his waterskin.“
Nenne shakes her head at the fighter. "If this were the first time this happened, I might be inclined to accept that possibility. Yet is has happened to our storyteller long before we arrived at Omu. And he is not the only one to have a lock of hair stolen from him."
Glimbul looks to Nenne with confusion, “This happens to you all often? Are you all cursed or something? That does not sounds like a good thing you know.”
"It happened to the storyteller quite some time ago, when we were traversing the jungles of Chult," Nenne confirms soberly. "He had nightmares afterward. I broke whatever magic was done to him our first night in this wretched city."
„But now we are here, in this supposedly secret tomb. Why is whoever or whatever did it to Boosey here?“
"I wish I understood how the caster selects his victims," the cleric sighs, "and what precisely he does to them. The nightmares seem to me a symptom rather than the spell's aim. As for why the culprit is here...the scent of festering wounds and rotted leather accompanied the chanting I heard. I would rather not speculate what that means until I have more data."
She looks up at the ceiling and scowls slightly. "If only my communications were not stifled...there is much I wish to ask." A sudden, affectionate smirk plays at her lips. "Then again," she adds to herself, "he is rarely forthcoming in his replies."
She looks back at Boosey. "Try not to fret too much, my friend. We will endure this together."
Boosey slowly puts his hand up to his head, feeling the spot where the hair is missing. A feeling of dread descends over him as the vivid nightmares he suffered in the jungle come back in a garbled rush.
“It...it seems similar to the last time, though whether it is the same I...I can’t be certain,” he stammers. He toys with his water skin a while. “What if it’s something to do with that Valindra, was that her name. The Lich.... other Lich,” and he rubs his face. “Oh I don’t know, but if we heard someone casting a spell, there has to be something....someone in here with us.”
He looks around somewhat wild eyed, then takes a drink from his water skin.
As Boosey sips from the water skin, his face screws up in an odd way. The gnome puts a hand on his stomach and he looks as if he might hurl. The sensation passes, and he looks otherwise okay. He opens his mouth to speak, but the words do not vocalize. He tries a few more phrases and words that bear no volume either. It seems that the bard has lost his voice.
Allister grabs the waterskin, take a dagger and cuts the waterskin open. He hands the empty and torn thing to Nenne. „Please take care of that.“
"Bard?" Vombec looked around the room, thrown off by what just happened. "What is it that you just drank? Is everything alright?"
Made you look.
Nenne lobs an annoyed look at Allister and sets the ruined water skin on the ground as she kneels to perform a medical inspection of the muted gnome.
"Remain calm," she encourages him. "Hopefully, the effects of that water will wear off quickly."
The gnome tries to speak, but each attempt it’s like the sound is cut off before it reaches his mouth. After several attempts he gives up and gives a resigned sigh, before pulling out his flute. He tries a few experimental notes, and is relieved to find that it still plays, sweet and clear.
A thought occurs to him and he tries to sing a few notes, running up a scale and repeatedly singing the word “doh” several times.
To the tune of “minstrel boy”, the only one he can think of as his mind is in a state of panic he sings,
“It seems,
that you were all correct about,
the water being rather dangerous.
I don’t,
know what to do right now,
but at least I can still sing some words, now.”
The cleric does her very best not to laugh and make the bard feel worse, settling instead for a half-pitying, half-wincing smile at his lyrics.
"As long as you can still spellcast in this fashion, it seems we will simply enjoy the fruit of your craft until you regain your speaking ability," she says as kindly as she can. "Protecting you all has taken quite a toll on me this day. I must ration what is left of my energy."
She touches the torn water skin and spends a minute restoring it.
The party talks it over for a while about where to go next. It's clear that each of the five heroes has their own idea of what is important, but the third floor comes up the most, so the party descends there. The two hulking creatures still lie ruined against and hanging from the balcony. The tomb is eerily quiet, save the rumbling from somewhere down below.
“We should see what‘s in this corridor. If some helpers or magic restore the traps and meatbags we have to hurry and not waste the opportunity. Unless we want to fight these guys again.“ Allister point towards the bodies of the behemoths.
Listening at the double doors at the far end of the hall provides no indicator as to what might be behind them; it is deadly silent. The narrow hallway precedes a room sporting what appears to be another sarcophagus. A four-columned portico juts out from the far wall, beneath which a stone sarcophagus rests in a wall recess. Four ceramic frog masks hang in niches around the sarcophagus. Beneath the masks, humanoid bones are strewn across the floor. To the east, a large carving of a tentacled frog-monster squats above a shrine. Offerings lie on a shelf before it. Four rectangular frescoes adorn the adjacent walls.
As the party passes the two creatures hanging over the edge of the balcony he points at the chain that still connected the two and makes a cutting motion with his fingers. He nods at Allister suggestion to look down the corridor and follows him in. Suddenly his voice sings out in a baritone, and as he performs he finds his arms making dramatic gestures in time with the music. "Weeeeeee, should check for traps in this passageway....the fight, the fight there were none found.......but to the end I did not go, just level with this passage north." As they enter the room with the sarcophagus, he calls out in a high staccato exclamation, rolling the 'R'' "Froghemoth?"
Boosey creeps into the room in search of any traps. The wall shrine's trinkets are a 6-inch-tall stone statuette of a froghemoth, which has an inscription on its base in Old Omuan, a copper bowl containing rat bones, four dead cockroaches, a green wax candle with a salvageable wick, and five loose gold coins. The bard finds no obvious traps after a lengthy search and stands to investigate the frescoes.
The first fresco depicts a frog-like behemoth using its tentacles to help the Omuan people knock down a mighty statue. In the foreground, an old woman wearing a frog mask tosses five coins from her hand as though sowing seeds.
The second fresco depicts a frog-like behemoth wrapping its tentacles around a giant crocodile as Omuan hunters stab the crocodile with their spears. In the foreground, an old man wearing a frog mask holds a bug up to his open mouth.
The third fresco depicts a frog-like behemoth with four Omuan hunters riding on its back finding a small boy in the jungle. The hunters seem elated. In the foreground, a young woman wearing a frog mask holds a knife in one hand and a headless chicken in the other.
The fourth and last fresco depicts a frog-like behemoth wallowing in a shallow pool as Omuans offer it urns of food and treasure as tribute. Cracks in the fresco obscure the head of the human figure and much of the other details in the foreground, but you can see that it grasps a candle base.
Boosey peers at the small statuette for a while and his face takes on a distant look for a moment. Eventually he smiles and nods. Pulling out the journal he carries, he finds a blank page and begins to write. The inscription on the statuette reads, "Give thanks to me as others have done since the dawn of time". At the end he simply writes Kubazan. He passes the translation round the party, gesturing at them to read it.
“He was actively involved in people‘s life and they paid tribute. Do we have to reenact those scenes or do we make our own offering? I don’t see a way to come up with a chicken or a boy.“